1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to antennas, and more particularly, to reconfigurable antennas.
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, and broadcasts. Typical wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access technologies capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access technologies include, code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, single-carrier frequency divisional multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems. Generally, these wireless communication systems may transmit data, receive data, or both transmit data and receive data using an antenna, antennas, or an antenna system.
Path loss in millimeter-wave may be high for wireless communications. Accordingly, in some cases, a high gain antenna array may generally be used to satisfy high data throughput requirements for various systems. Generally, the higher gain the antenna array has, the narrower the antenna array's beam becomes. The narrow beam characteristic of such a high-gain antenna system may generally lead to a need for beam steering for mobile applications where the location of a mobile device (and the mobile device's antenna) may be changing relative to other devices the mobile device is communicating with. As the beam of an antenna array is electronically steered to a certain direction, its gain is the product of the individual antenna element gain in that direction and the array factor. For improved system throughput, it may be necessary to have close to uniform antenna gain level in all directions. Accordingly, for improved system throughput, the individual antenna elements in the array would need to have omni-directional pattern characteristic. Antenna elements used in high-gain antenna arrays today do not have omni-directional pattern. Rather, currently, multiple antenna arrays are used to provide 360° of coverage. The use of multiple antenna arrays may increase system costs. Accordingly, an antenna system that uses a single antenna or a single antenna array in place of multiple antenna arrays may be useful and may decrease one or more of costs, space, or power.